They looked at each other.
"I am sorry," Elizabeth said.
He did not say anything immediately. He looked at her with the careful attention he gave things he was not sure about yet.
"Last night," she said. "I should have sent a message when I knew I was going to be later than I said. It would have taken me ten seconds and I did not think to do it and I should have." She looked at her coffee. "You were right. It was not fair to leave you waiting without any word."
Darcy was quiet for a moment. He set his shoes down by the door.
"Mia came back at seven-thirty," he said.
Elizabeth looked up.
"She waited up. She did not say she was waiting, she was watching something on her phone on the sofa, but she was waiting." He leaned against the doorframe. "She went to bed at ten. I told her you had probably just lost track of the time."
Elizabeth's chest tightened.
"She believed me," he said. "Or she chose to. Which is its own kind of grace, from her."
"I did not think about Mia," Elizabeth said. She said it plainly, because it was true and because dressing it up would notmake it more or less true. "I was thinking about myself and I did not think about who was here waiting."
"No," he said.
"I will come back earlier next time."
Darcy looked at her. His expression softened—not entirely, but enough to settle into something quieter, the way things did when they had been held at a careful distance and were, for a moment, allowed to rest.
"There does not have to be a next time," he said. "I am not telling you not to go out. I am not saying that." He picked up his shoes again. "I am just asking for a message. One message. So I know you are alright."
"One message," Elizabeth said.
"That is all."
She nodded. He nodded. It was not a grand gesture. It was not a resolution of anything larger. It was two people in a kitchen at six in the morning agreeing to something small and specific and meaning it.
"How was it?" he said.
She looked at him.
"The date," he said. His voice was entirely even. "How was it?"
She watched him for a moment. He looked back at her steadily with the particular composure of someone who had asked a question and intended to hear the answer regardless of what it cost him to ask it.
"Decent," she said.
"Decent."
"He was pleasant. We went to dinner and then a club. The music was good." She looked at her coffee. "He was not —" She stopped.
"You do not have to —"
"He was cool," she said. Simply."
Darcy said nothing. He was looking at the floor just to the left of her, with the expression he wore when he was deciding what to do with something.
"I am sorry too," he said. "For last night. The things I said."
"You were not wrong about most of it."
